


m 



iFSl 



Glass 
Book 



»'- 



.^.61 



THE SIN AND THE CURSE; 



THE UNION, THE TRUE SOURCE OF DISUNION. AND OUR DUTY IN 

THE PRESENT CRISIS. 



A DISCOURSE 



PREACHED ON THE OCCASION OF THE 



DAY OF HUMILIATION AND PRAYER 



APPOINTED BY THE 



GOVERNOR OF SOUTH CAROLINA, 

ON 

November 21st, 1860, 

IN THE 

SECOND PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. CHARLESTON, S. C. 

BY 

REV. THOMAS SMYTH, D. I). 



PUBLISHED BY REQUEST <>F THE SESSION AND CORPORATION. 



CHARLESTON : 

STEAM-POWER PRESSES OF EVANS & COGSWELL. 

No. 3 Broad and 103 East Hay Street. 

1860. 



.5 



7 



PEOCLAMATION. 

Whereas, it is proper and becoming a people who acknowledge the 
hand of God in every event, and bow in reverence to His will, and who 
desire to imitate the noble example of their forefathers, not only in resist- 
ance to oppression and injustice, but in supplication for Divine aid and 
Counsel in this momentous crisis of our country's history, to implore a con- 
tinuance of His favor and interposition to protect and sustain us in all the 
trials we may be called upon to undergo, and the dangers to which we may 
be exposed: Now, therefore, I, WILLIAM EL GIST, Governor of the 
State of South Carolina, in obedience to a resolution of the General As- 
sembly, appointing Wednesday, the 21st instant, as a day of Fasting, 
Humiliation and Prayer, make this my proclamation, inviting the clergy 
and people of all denominations in this State, to assemble at their respec- 
tive places of worship, to implore the direction and blessing of Almighty 
God in this our hour of difficulty, and to give us one heart and one mint/ to 
oppose, by all just and proper means, every encroachment upon our rights. 
Given under my hand and the seal of the State, at Columbia, on the 13th 
day of November, in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hun- 
dred and sixty. 



WM. II. GIST. 



<*7 Y 0'2 



r 



DISCOURSE 



Daniel ix, 11, 14— "Yea, all Israel have trangressed thy law, even by depart- 
ing, thajt they might not obey thy voice; therefore the curse is poured upon us, and 
the Lord hath watched upon the evil and brought it upon us." 

God is governor among the nations, King of Kings and 
Lord of Lords,, the high and mighty ruler of the Universe, 
doiriff whatsoever it pleaseth him among the armies of 
heaven, and the inhabitants of the earth — none, with im- 
punity, daring to stay his hand, or say unto him, What 
doest thou ? The most High ruleth in the kingdom of men 
and giveth it to whomsoever he will. 

This great practical truth is embodied in the wisely 
worded proclamation of a most seasonable appointment, by 
tlie present Governor of South Carolina, His Excellency 
W. H. Gist, as follows : 

" Whereas, it is proper and becoming a ^people who 
acknowledge the hand of God in every event, and bow 
in reverence to 'his will, and who desire to imitate the 
noble example of their forefathers, not only in resistance 
to oppression and injustice, but in supplication for divine 
aid and counsel in this momentous crisis of our country's 
history, to implore a continuance of his favor and interpo- 
sition, to protect and sustain us in all the trials we may be 
called upon to undergo, and the dangers to which we may 
be exposed. Now, therefore, I, William H. Gist, Governor 



of the State of South Carolina, in obedience to a resolu- 
tion of the Genera] Assembly, appointing Wednesday, the 
21s1 instant, as a day of Pasting, Humiliation and Prayer, 
make this my proclamation, inviting the clergy and people 
of all denominations in this State, to assemble at their 
respective places of worship, to implore the direction and 
blessing of Almighty God in this our hour of difficulty, 
and to give as one heart and one mind, to oppose, by all just 
.•tnd proper means, every encroachment upon our rights." 

This then is a day of fasting. 

Fasting has been universally adopted by all nations as 
an expression of consciously-felt sin and sorrow, through 
which, by the suffering and impoverishment of the body, 
the mind is led to realize man's helplessness, dependence 
and want of all things; and the conscience and heart to 
tome in humble contrition before an offended God, under 
whose judgments they may be suffering, and whose gra- 
cious providence alone can either remove them, or in the 
midst of judgment remember mercy. 

Till- IS ALSO A DAY OF HUMILIATION. 

This implies calamity, tall and ruin; sin and sorrow; 
contrition and confession; and the recognition of God, 
whose righteous indignation has brought all upon us. 

Hit this ts further a day of prayer. 

This implies that God can, and that God alone can, 
help us, and give us true repentance and unfeigned 
humiliation ; that God, alone, can avert all the evils 
thai might come upon us; impart wisdom to our coun- 
selors; and give to all our citizens unity of purpose 
; ""1 plans. It implies that God can influence our sister 
States— who are alike interested— to stand or fell with us; 
and cause other States to acknowledge his power and 
presence in this national calamity, and to do justly, and 



IV 



act righteously and peaceably before him. Ii implies, fur 
ther, that God can, and thai God alone can, incline th 
hearts of foreign nations to recognize our true posture, 
purposes and plans ; and his purposes concerning us: and 
to fraternize with us. It implies, in short, that God alone 
can mitigate inevitable disasters and suffering; give us 
patience and perseverance under all adversities;' and secure 
for us a peaceful, prosperous and happy issue out of all 
our troubles. 

^o God-believing and God-fearing mind, can question 
the sad and melancholy fact that God's curse is poured out 
upon us, and that the Lord has watched for the evil to 
bring it upon us. But mark our distinction. This curse 
is upon the nation, and not upon the constitution ; nor 
upon the union, nor upon the government under that con- 
stitution. 

That constitution and constitutional compact was, and- 
is, and ever will remain, in all history, and to the end of 
time, great, glorious and free. 

That constitution was found sufficient to produce, perfect, 
preserve, propagate and prosper these United States in a 
progressive and ever augmenting greatness, beyond all par- 
allel in the history of the world; and it is sufficient to 
have sustained that growing development; and to have 
encircled with a halo of glory, inscribed all over with the 
stars and stripes, the mightiest nation of the earth, shining 
more and more resplendent in its greatness and glory. 

The constitution of the United States has been admitted. 
the world over, both by Statesmen and Philosophers of 
every school, to be an embodiment of wisdom, patriotism, 
sagacity and prudential foresight and moderation ; of ster- 
ling good sense ; and of religion without restriction upon 
the full exercise of conscientious differences. 



6 

Qui fathers signed it amid the solemnities of religion, 

.,,,,1 j n the awful silence of a realized futurity; amid the 
._,,.-,,,, spectres of war, famine and wasting desolations; 
.,,,,! [ D the arm intrepidity of martyrs. Having ratified 
their signatures with their blood, they bequeathed it, to- 
gether with the name, character and farewell address of 
Washington, as a priceless inheritance to their posterity in 
all future generations : and thus handed down the States, 
united under that constitution— as a land of promised rest, 
recompense and great reward, flowing with milk and honey, 
and under the peculiar patronage and protection of heaven— 
to all the downcast and downtrodden nations of the earth. 

My brethren, that constitution is still our boast and 
glory, yea our consolation and strength, in this day of dis- 
aster and disruption. We love and cherish it still. We 
love it. even in death. We bow in reverence before the 
>ha< U's of the mighty dead, who stand this day as mourn- 
ers around the bier on which it lies shrouded in grave 
clothes, pale in death, and soon to be committed to an 
untimely and dishonored grave. Our faces, like theirs, 
e-ather blackness, and our hearts even bleed within us. 

How doth the nation sit solitary that was full of people ! 
1 1 . >w is she become as a widow ! She that was great among 
the nations, and princess among the provinces, \how is 
she become tributary! She weepeth sore in the night, and 
her tears are on her cheeks. Among all her lovers, she 
hath none to comfort her. All her Mends have dealt 
treacherously with her ; they are become her enemies. 

When 1 was a child upon my mother's knee, I heard the 
praises of thee, my adopted country! In my childhood's 
visions thine image rose proudly magnificent before me, 
towering aloft to heaven, and spreading thy branches over 
the seas ! Boyhood's sports were jubilant of thee, and 



manhood brought with it eager expectations of becoming 
inseparably thine! Hen- for thirty years 1 have heard 
from every lip, on every festive occasion, the praise of 
thee! Language was too poor, all analogies too feeble, 
all pageantry too trivial to adorn thy majestic person, and 
to illustrate thy fame ! The infant lisped it in the cradle, 
and the child shouted it in his sportive gambols. The 
boy heralded it in his mimic warfare and oratorial decla- 
mation. Men marched to the music of its stirring: sounds 
in gay review, or in the dread and deadly clash of death- 
giving battle. The bells tolled it. The martial band gave 
to it the symphony of its most melodious music. It ascend- 
ed from the pulpit to heaven in grateful thanksgiving and 
praise; and thence, also, it sounded forth to patriotic hearts 
in words of counsel, admonition, and prophetic warning. It 
mingled with the incense which arose from every household, 
it soared upon the wings of every private prayer; and was 
breathed forth in thousands of silent or out-bursting ejacu- 
lations. It gave softness to the bed of the weary; security 
and solace to the disheartened; and illumined with joyful 
exultation the departing hour of him who, with or without 
any other legacy, could transmit to his children an unim- 
paired and unparalled political heritage. 

And must we take up the lamentation and say, from this 
glorious constitutional union all the beauty is departed ! 
This nation hath grievously sinned, therefore is she re- 
moved. All that honored her despise her, because they 
have seen her nakedness. Yea, she sigheth and turneth 
backward. She remembered not her last, — her chief and 
purposed end, — therefore she came down wonderfully. 
She had no comforters. For these things I weep. Mine 
eye, mine eye runneth over with water. Mine eyes do fill 
with tears. Mv bowels are troubled for the destruction of 



the daughter of my people. How is the gold become dim, 
and ili<' mos1 fine gold changed! The crown is fallen from 
our head. Woe unto as, for we have sinned! 

M v brethren, in this calamity the whole world sympa- 
thizes. Thai sun of liberty, whose rays shone so brightly 
over every laud and sea — which went forth on its mission of 
glad tidings to the ends of the earth, rejoicing as a strong 
man to run a race — has gone down while it wae yet day. 
The brightest example of free constitutional self-govern- 
ment, and the last hope of a Republic based on universal 
equality, liberty, and fraternity, — the cynosure of all 
nations, — has darkened into a dreadful eclipse, and left a 
tempestuous sea, to be navigated by foundering barks, 
without chart, compass or rudder. Woe, woe, woe to the 
inhabiters of the earth! 

To whom, then, and to what, is all this misery and 
destruction of the hopes of man to be attributed? jSTot, 
my brethren, to any one political party, — not to any 
present political excitement, — not to the recent triumph of 
sectional pride, and its meddlesome interference with an 
institution altogether beyond its interests, authority or con- 
trol, and its traitorous disloyalty to the sovereignty of the 
constitution, and of Southern as well as Northern States. 
This is only the result, — the consummation of a tragedy 
which has been long progressing to its last act, — when the 
curtain fell upon the dismembered body of the Union. 

In the overwhelming mass which, like an avalanche, 
swept away all existing landmarks and barriers, there was 
a conglomeration of all possible variety of materials, — 
atheists, infidels, communists, free-lovers, rationalists, Bible 
•s, anti-ehristian levellers, and anarchists, — many of 
whom had no interests at stake, and no principles to 



9 

restrain them within the limits of constitutional truth, jus- 
tice or propriety. 

But heside these, there were a large number of God- 
fearing and Christ-loving, conscientious people, of whom 
we must hoar the testimony of Paul, that they have a zeal 
for God, and seek his glory and the good of man, but not 
according to knowledge. 

They pervert the golden rule of our Saviour. That rule 
was designed not to impart to men the first principles of 
justice, of right and wrong, but, on the assumption of their 
exigence, to guard us against the perverting and blinding 
influence of selfishness, pride, passion and prejudice. Inter- 
preted as these people apply it, that rule would lead to 
absurdity, injustice, or to impossibility; to the overthrow 
of virtue, chastity, honour, honesty, and all the rights of 
law, property and power; and instead of requiring us to do 
to others only what, in their circumstances and relations, we 
would have -a just and reasonable right to expect, in view 
both of all their and our own best interests, it would require us 
to do what others desired, though their selfishness should 
demand the sacrifice of virtue, chastity, property or power. 
Verily, verily, they have put into the hands of an unre- 
strained populace a double edged sword, which will yet 
pierce through their own soul. 

They have perverted and prostituted the Bible. They 
have done this by subjecting it to the private interpre- 
tations of men ; to the developments of philosophy, 
falsely so called; to the licentious and atheistic spirit 
of a liberty which knows no restraint and no authority, 
human or divine ; and, by thus converting the Bible into a 
law, binding, according to their view of it, upon God 
and all other men beyond themselves, instead of being an 



10 

infallible and unalterable standard of right and wrong, 
truth and error, of what is to be dpne, and what is not 
to be done, and a standard imposed equally and alike upon 
all men, bond or free, and to add to, or to take from which 
is alike cursed of God. 

They pervert the great doctrines of personal responsi- 
bility, liberty of conscience, liberty of thought, liberty of 
opinion and liberty of action. This they do by requiring 
all others to adopt as God's truth, that which is believed 
to be beside and contrary to Scripture; and by assuming 
that tbey are responsible for the opinions and conduct of 
other men, who are, nevertheless, independent of them, 
and free to will and to perform within their sphere of 
action, without any other interference than their own con- 
science, and the word, will and providence of God. 

They pervert truth, justice, honor and good faith. 
This they do by availing themselves of opportunity, under 
a bond of mutual, written, and strictly limited partnership, 
to act contrary to the terms of that partnership; to the 
injury and destruction of their confiding partners; and by 
attempting, through that violated bond, to coerce unwill- 
ing and injured parties to remain and suffer insult and 
injustice under it. 

But, besides these perversions of fundamental principles, 
these good and well iritentioned people are willingly igno- 
rant of, or praetiealhy ignore, the prescience and providence 
of God ; the fore-knowledge and fore-ordination by God, of 
whatsoever cometh to pass, so that not even a sparrow can 
fall unheeded to the ground, nor a hair of our heads be 
unnumbered, nor any event happen by chance. They for- 
get that government is from God; that the powers that be 
are ordained of God; and that we are to be subject to every 



11 

ordinance of man, not only from fear, but for conscience- 
sake. 

They forget that man and this present world are under 
the curse of sin; that trial and temptations difficulty and 
distress enter into the very warp and woof of this present 
state ; that God's judgments are scattered abroad over the 
earth that its inhabitants may learn righteousness; that 
God maketh even the wrath and sin of man to praise him, 
and out of great evils and privations bringeth greater good. 

They forget that the condition of slavery has been and is 
recognized and regulated by God, who first ordained that it 
should ceme to pass as a penal infliction upon a guilty race, 
for the mitigation of greater evils, and for the good of all : 
that he has twice embodied it in the moral law, and has thus 
environed it with immutable and eternal sanctions; that 
men perfect before God, friends of God, and beloved by 
God, lived under it, ruled over -it, and consecrated it with 
God's blessing, promises and protection; that the Saviour 
of the world assumed and acknowledged it, and chose from 
under its polity his apostles, disciples and friends ; and that 
the Scriptures of his inspiration are closed and sealed up 
from all addition or substruction — by men of perverse 
minds who would be wise above that which is written, and 
wiser than God — with the recognition and regulation of 
slavery as a civil and domestic institution. 

They forget that God is in this whole matter; that against 
their most earnest wishes he brought this institution into these 
Southern States, where he had prepared a soil, and has pro- 
vided a seed, whose fruit now supplies food and raiment, 
with a home and home comforts, for millions of slaves, for 
millions of masters, and for untold millions in every nation 
in the whole earth, themselves included; while its culture and 



12 

climate arc healthful to the slave, and fatally hurtful to all 
others. 

Tlirv forgel that under the fostering care of these South- 
ern St ;iies, and of this legally bounded institution, these 
people have multiplied in a ratio greater than their mas- 
ters: that they are healthier and happier than any other 
laboring class on the face of the earth; and that the gospel 
of Christ ] (reached to these poor, has come to them with 
mere of the power of God, unto their present peace and 
everlasting blessedness, than the missionary labors of all 
( ihristendom, in all the world beside, though greatly blest 
i ) great and glorious results, have as yet accomplished. 

For all such persons, let us exercise pity, sympathy, 
and forbearance. "The} T have a zeal for God, but not 
according to knowledge." 

For that large, respectable, and heroic body of conserva- 
tive and faithful friends, who, like Eddistone lighthouse, 
have for thirty years stood firm, though alone and in mid- 
ocean, against the whole force of the winds and waves of 
boisterous fanaticism, let us cherish gratitude and praise, 
and erect for them, monuments in the fleshy tablets of our 
hearts. 

And what, then, remains for ourselves ? Let us learn 
and profoundly contemplate that secret seminal princi- 
ple, which, having been conceived, has brought forth 
all the iniquity and mischief under which our country 
lies overwhelmed. 

My brethren, I am not here to speak to you as a politi- 
cian, or as a philosopher. I am here in God's name and 
stead to point out to you the causes of his anger, the 
sources of all our past and present dangers, the proper 
ground for humiliation and repentance, and our present 
and future course as Christian patriots. 



1 Q 

Now, to me, pondering long and profoundly upon the 
course of events, the evil and bitter root of all our evils is 
to be found in the infidel, atheistic, French Revolution, 
Red Republican principle, embodied as an axiomatic semi- 
nal principle — not in the Constitution, but in the Declara- 
tion of Independence. That seminal principle is this: 
"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are 
created equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator 
with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, 
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and that to secure 
these rights, governments are instituted by God, deriving 
their just powers from the consent of the governed,"* and 
so on to inevitable conseque'nces. 

ISTow, though God is here introduced, the Declaration is 
Godless. God is introduced to give dignity and emphasis ; 
to create man, and to ordain government ; and then He is 
banished. The sceptre is torn from his hands, and fictions 
are substituted for facts. 

All men are not born equal, in bodily constitution, size, 
sex, or capacity ; nor in mental faculties and endowments; 
nor in emotional susceptibilities; nor in moral tastes and 
judgments; nor in social position; nor in their relations to 
law and government. The only equality is, that all men 
are born in sin; children of wrath, even as others ^ lost, 
and yet redeemable ; and that as society, government, and 
parentage are all of, and from, God, so do these determine 
every man's rights, responsibilities and duties, and are to 
be submitted to, by all men equally and alike, as the ordi- 



* Since writing, I find that John Randolph, of Virginia, said, that there was 
poison hid, from its origin, in the present Constitution of the United States; and 
being warned beforehand, by the departed voice of this remarkable but able man, 
let us avoid a like evil in forming our new Constitution. 



14 

uaries of God, and that, too, not only from necessity, but 
for conscience's sake. 

Now, Lei us trace the progressive development of this 
atheistic, revolutionary and anarchic principle. 

First, it Led to universal suffrage— that is, it put the gov- 
ernment of this country into the hands of a majority of 
many— and in some cases, of multitudes— who were igno- 
rant, unlettered, unacquainted with its principles, alto- 
gether uninterested in its course of policy, and restrained 
by no Love of truth, justice, or constitutional order. 

As a natural consequence, it followed that majorities 
should absolutely govern, and should interpret and govern 
even the Constitution. "The will of majorities," 'says Jef- 
ferson, "is the vital principle of Republics, and from which 
there is no appeal, except to force the vital principle of 
despotism." "But submission to the will of the majority is 
not a principle of our Federal Government. The one prin- 
ciple of that is, submission to the Constitution, and the laws 
made in conformity with it. Submission to the will of the 
majority, is the principle of pure, absolute democracy, 
which our government is not. Our written constitutions 
are designed for the express purpose of limiting, defining, 
and regulating the power of the majority. And one soli- 
tary citizen, with the constitution on his side, has a right 
to govern all the rest of the nation, until the constitution 
is changed according to its own provisions." 

Another consequence of this seminal principle was the 
interpretation of the Bible according to the majority — that 
is, according to the popular opinion, and the coercive 
enforcement of this majority-interpretation as a higher 
law upon all who differ from it. 

The transfer of this principle, with its higher law, to the 
Constitution as a written bond of union was easy. The 



15 

higher law, or in other words, the majority-opinion ot the 
Northern States repudiated the Constitution by antagonis- 
tic, nullifying legislation, preparatory to the time now 
arrived, when a majority of the States have carried out 
their sectional and anti-constitutional interpretation against 
the minority; and preparatory to a time progressively not 
far distant, when, by a two-thirds' majority, the Constitu- 
tion . itself might be adapted to the views of this sectional 
majority. 

A further consequence of this development has been the 
rejection, by many, of the divine inspiration, and infallible, 
unalterable authority of the Bible, as the only standard of 
faith and practice, of right and wrong, of sin and duty. 
Hence, also, the doctrine of a self-developing morality. If 
God is the same yesterday, to-day and forever, and the 
moral law as the standard of what is right and wrong is im- 
mutable, then slavery, which God made right, authorized, 
limited, directed, and imbedded in that moral law, must 
still remain right, and shall be maintained as long, and so 
far, and for- the purposes, which God by his word and 
providence points out. But on this higher law principle, a 
majority of his creatures can decide for God, and against 
God, that slavery is, in its essential nature, absolutely sin- 
ful ; further, that it is so essentially and hienously wicked, 
that in order to overthrow it, compacts may be broken, 
and robbery, murder, arson, treason, rebellion and massa- 
cre with all the hellish crew of bigotry, hatred, uncharita- 
bleness, excommunication, calumny, opprobrious vitupera- 
tion, are let loose to devastate and destroy. 

And what, we ask, could finally be the result of this 
higher law — that is, this majority and equality -principle — 
but anarchy, prodigality, profanity, Sabbath profanation, 
vice and ungodliness in every monstrous form, and in the 



16 

end the corruption and overthrow of the Republic, and the 
erection, upon its ruins, of an absolute and bloody despot- 
ism, of which coercion, or in other words, force, is the vital 
principle. An anti-slavery Bible must have an anti-slavery 
God, and then a Gocl anti-law, order, property and moral- 
it v : that is no God but " the God of this world.* 

Now, my brethren, having become originally partners in 
this primal sin, we are now, however unwillingly, par- 
takers in the penal curse and consequences, and in all the 
disastrous results of violated faith, and in the aggressive 
encroachments of a cruel and crushing majority. 

True, 3'ou found out your sin and misery, — but too late. 
Thank God, however, not too late, with his blessing, to 
repent, reform, return unto him, and be governed by his 
word, will, and providence. 

It is your consolation, that your opponents themselves 
being judges, you have claimed only that which, by the 
Constitution, was righteously and equitably yours.f Con- 



* At the late infidel convention in New York, a quondam preacher moved that it 
be 

" Resolved, That creators are accountable to the created, causes to effects, parents 
to children, gods to men" ! 

We find a similar sentiment in Gerrit Smith's recent " Discourse on Bible Civil 
o ■> ernment." He says : 

" Dr. Cheever sees no hope for freedom, if the Bible shall be given to the side of 
slavery. But I see no hope for the Bible, if it shall be proved to be for slavery. 
Slavery is not to be tried % the Bible, but the Bib/, by freedom. Ail the talk that the 
Biblt is th charter of man's rights is nonsenee. His nature is that charter ; and his 
rights are the rights of his nature — no more nor less — every book to the contrary, 
notwithstanding. The nature of a monkey determines its rights. The nature of a 
man his." 

What a glorious country would this be, with institutions based on the principle 
that "parents are accountable to their children," "causes to effects," "the Bible to 
fri edom," God to man ! ! 

But this identical doctrine of Gerrit Smith is the egg out of which modern abo- 
litionism has been hatched. — 2V. Y. Obs. 

fin proof of this, the following deserves preservation and promulgation : 

The Newark Weekly Journal, of November 6th, contains a speech delivered by 
Col. James W. Wall, at Beverly, New Jersey. 



17 

tributing more than others to the common welfare, you 
have asked nothing beyond equal rights, privileges, and 
property in the common domain ; the faithful execution of 
constitutional guarantees; and the free use of God's word, 
worship, and institutions, unfettered by the party and par- 
tial interpretation of equally ignorant and prejudiced fel- 
low men. 

And though it may seem an extravagant assertion, it is 
nevertheless true, that by the peculiar providence of God 
towards you, to you is given the high and holy keeping, 
above all other conservators, of the Bible, the whole Bible, 
and nothing but the Bible; and of that liberty of con- 
science, free from the doctrines and commandments of 
men — which is based upon and sustained by the right and 
duty of every man to search the Scriptures, to prove all 
things, and to hold fast that which is good; — a liberty 



"But looking away," he says, "from the blackest side of this party, this Re- 
publican party is aggressive against the South from the very nature of its organi- 
zation. It arrays itself against fifteen States in this Confederacy, and from its 
peculiar principles its triumph must be recognized as the triumph of a party 
whose political faith is founded upon geographical discriminations and distinc- 
tions in the Union, against which the good Washington warned his counti^-men.'' 
"Modern Republicanism," says he, ••first made its appearance rising like a spectre 
from amid the ruins of the political earthquake of '52, that first overwhelmed the 
Whig party. The Free Soil agitation, which was the first wave of the great catas- 
trophe which finally overwhelmed the part}', carried with it the seminal principles, 
out of which this strange and anomalous creation was born. * * * » 

" I know that this bold, confident, and determined enemy in our front, is sneerin" 
complacently, and laughing to scorn all these threats of disunion, wrung from our 
Southern brethren by the fierceness of the persecution they have suffered, that is 
threatened if the Republican party succeed. And they ask you the question they 
conceive to be unanswerable, 'Do you ever hear the North talk about secession? 
Oh, no, the North is loyal to the Constitution.' Now, my answer to all this is, the 
North has never had any provocation; and I defy any man to lay his finger upon a 
single point in the history of our Congressional legislation, where the South has 
ever attempted to infringe upon a single guaranteed Constitutional right of the 
North. But the Congressional page is blistered all over with just such attempts 
made by the North against the South. And from the first anti-slavery petition in 
Congress, as early as 1789; through the fierce agitation of the question calmed 
down by the Missouri Compromise; and during the stormy period when abolition 



IS 

of conscience drawing after it liberty of thought, opinion, 
and conduct, individual responsibility, and individual re- 
gality as kings and priests unto God — and a liberty of eon- 
science, which lias never existed among men severed from 
the pure, perfect, and unfettered word of God. 

Upon this rock let the South build her house, and the 
gates of hell shall not prevail against it. God's word 
obeyed, and God's will followed, will secure for us that 
Divine succour, which is greater than all that can be 
against us. 

As it regards your political course, I have but a word to 
say. 1 am here to speak to you in God's name and for 
God, and as standing in relation to God. 

]STow, the voice of the people, it is said, is the voice of 
God. But, my brethren, this is true only in the sense that 
it is permitted and overruled by God, and that it may be 
instrumentally employed by him for evil as well as for 
good; for destruction as well as for deliverance. For the 
proverb is equally pregnant, quern Deus perdat prius demen- 
iat, whom God would destroy, he first dements, or gives 
up to some mad delusion; making the wrath of man to 
praise him, and restraining the remainder thereof. 

But when there are two lawful ways open for accom- 
plishing some lawful and laudable end, then the united 

petitions, insulting to Southern men and their rights, fell in showers upon the 
Bouse; on through the brief struggle about the Wilmot Proviso; and on to the 
final and crowning act, tbe organization of a strictly sectional party, making war 
upon their rights. Everything in the nature of agitation; everything in the nature 
of aggression; everything in tbe nature of insult to Southern men and Southern 
institutions; everything in the nature of the whispering of rebellion in the ear of 
the Southern .-line, originating in the North. It is this mad Northern fanaticism — 
pirit of never-ending, still-beginning aggression, which has served to aggra- 
vate and torture with the neuralgia of apprehension, the keen, shrinking, sensitive 
nerves of the South, and has given rise to all these mutterings of discontent, these 
threatenings of disunion." 

To this ought to lie added the late letter and admirably bold truth-loving and 
truth-telling speeches of Hon. Caleb dishing. 



19 

heart and voice of a whole multitude may be very safely 
regarded as the voice of God, saying "Go Forward." 

Now, us there, perhaps, never was a time when the 
people of South Carolina were more truly of one heart, 
and that heart an eager, anxious, throbbing heart, so there 
never was a time when they had more need to call niton 
God than now. 

We want, oh yes, we want the Spirit to be poured out 
from on high, as a spirit of wisdom and grace, upon the 
counsellors who shall be called to guide our ship of State 
through that Scylla and Charybdis, which, with syren voice 
of song, or the roar of terrific breakers, endanger our in- 
evitable course. 

We want, oh yes, we want Him, who has said, '•counsel 
is mine and sound wisdom; I am understanding, I have 
strength. By me kings reign, and princes learn justice." 
We want this mighty God to appear for our help. 

AVe want the Spirit of God to come as an enlightener 
and reprover, to show to us as a people our sins and our 
transgressions. 

We want that there should be such an acknowledgment 
of past error, such searching out of present tampering with 
evil, such putting away of the accursed thing, that as a 
people we may plead the promise, (2 Chron. xvi. 9,) "the 
eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole 
earth, to show himself strong in behalf of them whose 
heart is perfect towards him." 

A great and mighty king of old, raised up by God to be 
an instrument for the accomplishment of His own pur- 
poses with reference to his people, Israel, was afterwards 
deprived of reason for seven years, and sent to eat grass 
with the beasts of the fields, that he might know, and that 
it might be written for our learning, "that the Most High 



20 

ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whom he 
will." Now, God, my brethren, is now just what he was 
then, and in words we all acknowledge it. We call him 
King of kings and Lord of lords. But, oh! the secret and 
evil root of unbelief which lurks in many a heart. And 
with the words, God and God's providence on our lips, how 
prone are our hearts to he secretly leaning on an arm of 
tlcsli. on chariots and horsemen, on counsellors and meas- 
ures rallicr than on the living God. 

Oh how solemn is the warning, "Thus saith the Lord, 
Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, that maketh flesh 
his arm, and in his heart departeth from the Lord." Jer. 
xvii, 5. 

But it is said in busy, clamorous reiteration, we want 
this tiling and that thing, and then all will go on prosper- 
ously. I will answer thee — "God is greater than man," 
and if man acknowledge it not, God must make him feel 
it, for " my glory I will not give to another, saith the 
Lord of hosts." 

Surely, we have had some experience that "boasting is 
not good," and that there is one mightier than man, before 
whose providence all the might, wisdom and wrath of man 
melt away like smoke beneath the sun, or wood within the 
fire. "Arise," ye people, "and call upon thy God, for the 
Lord he is the true God, he is the living God, and an ever- 
lasting King; at his wrath the earth shall tremble, and the 
nations shall not be able to abide his indignation." (Jer. 
x, 10.) 

But we also recpiire a sincere, practical belief that God 
hears an<l answers prayer. Consider how appropriately 
God teaches us this truth. Behold Moses and Aaron, 
seated on a hill, at the foot of which Israel, in her weak- 
ness, contends with Amalek in his mightiness and pride. 



21 

His hand is lifted up to God in acknowledgmenl thai the 

battle is his, and that by prayer his people shall prevail. 
The flesh is weary and his hand falls by his side, and 
behold how, in a moment, the tide of victory turns against 

Israel, and Amalek prevails. But Aaron and llnr are 
there, the true deliverers of Israel. And how do they 
deliver them? They lift up his fallen hands and hold 
them up, the one on the one side, and the other on the 
other side; and his hands were steady until the 0-01112: down 
of the sun. 

Brethren, look on this picture and believe it. Believe 
God's own declaration, that united, believing prayer must 
prevail. How many are the passages in the history of 
Israel — search them out and ponder and pray over them — 
in which the prayer — "neither knew we what to do; hut 
our eyes were upon thee, O God," — brought deliverance. 

Away! away, then! get it behind thee as from Satan! 
oh miserable delusion, that prayer is the resource of inac- 
tion, timidity and weakness. It is the weakness of "the 
worn Jacob," engaging in his behalf the strength of the 
omnipotent Jehovah. It is the timidity of one who fears 
none but God; and who acknowledges that it is God who 
must "put the fear of us and the dread of us upon the 
nations that are under the whole heavens." It is seeking 
to secure before activity, and in it, that which can make 
every movement tell, and every effort mighty through 
God to the pulling down of strongholds. Arise, then, ye 
people, and call upon thy God; for he has said, "and it 
shall come to pass, that before they call I shall answer, 
and while they are yet speaking, I will hear." 

But to do this, we want, my brethren, a praying heart. 
And how shall we get this want supplied? We answer, 
by personal humiliation and personal faith. It is to 



22 

general humiliation and faith that we are now called. 
And oh, what a glorious opportunity is now afforded to 
the people of South Carolina to acknowledge, before all 
the world, that "God is her refuge and strength, a very 
present help in trouble;" and that relying upon him — his 
word, his will, his providence and his protection — she "will 
not fear, though the earth be removed, and though the 
mountains he carried into the midst of the sea; though 
the waters thereof roar and he troubled; though the moun- 
tains shake with the swelling thereof. God is in the midst 
of her; she shall not be moved; God shall help her, and 
that right early. The heathen raged, and the kingdoms 
were moved; he uttered his voice, and the earth melted. 
The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our 
refuge." 

But still it is individuals who make up a congregation 
and a commonwealth, and it is only by individual confes- 
sion and humiliation, it can come before God. And does 
not the example of Daniel, when his people were in cap- 
tivity in Babylon, show us that it is the holiest men in a 
nation who most humbly acknowledge and bewail national 
and general sins. See him in his closet and on his knees, 
with face towards the temple, and his hands and heart 
towards God. Hear him, as the Holy Spirit has given 
vocal utterance to his prayers, and his Father who heard 
them in secret, and rewarded openly, has rehearsed them 
unto us. ""We have 'sinned and committed iniquity." 
•• Oh, Lord, to us belongeth confusion of face, to our kings, 
and to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have 
sinned against thee." 

Without some such personal sense of sin and humilia- 
tion, Ave cannot fast right, nor can we humble ourselves 
aright. We cannot draw nigh fervently and with a pure 



23 

heart, with holiness and confidence, unto him who has 

said, "To this man will [ look, even to him thai is poor 
and of a contrite heart, and that trembleth at my word." 
Oh, seek, brethren— each for himself apart, and each family 
apart— seek this spirit for yourself, for this church, for this 
community, and for our beloved commonwealth. 

But to individual humiliation, we must add individual 
faith. The one great hindrance to faith — to faith in prayer, 
and to believing, prayerful humiliation — is guilt upon the 
conscience. 

This is what separates between us and God. This is the 
dead weight which sinks our hearts to earth, when they 
would rise to heaven; clouds the soul with fear; and be- 
numbs and paralyzes the energies of conscience which if 
at peace with God, would impart concentration of power to 
the will, the understanding, and the heart. 

Oh, what a blessed day, then, might this become to each 
one of you if it leads you to search out and discover the 
reason why you find it so hard to believe, to pray, to expect 
and to confide; if it leads you to see your need of an advo- 
cate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous ; to rely 
upon his blood which cleanseth from all sin ; and thus to 
find peace in your own soul towards God. Then would 
you become in deed and in truth, one of your country's 
best benefactors and defenders, and that, too, although 
incapable by sex or age for any public or active service in 
the field, or in the forum — because you would become one 
of the "Lord's remembrancers," "the worm Jacob" wrest- 
ling with God, and prevailing with him to bless us and to 
do us good, by turning every one of us from our sins to 
our Saviour, and by sending his invisible and invincible 
chariot and horsemen, to defend and to deliver us. Then 
would the voice from heaven cry, and when I ask what 



24 

shall I cry, the response is, "Cry unto to her that her 
warfare is accomplished, her iniquity pardoned," and that 
though a little one she shall become a thousand, and that 
though one of the least among the tribes of Israel, she shall 
become great. 

And do I not hear a responsive voiee from every heart 
in this congregation and commonwealth, saying, "I will 

ARISE AND GO TO MY FATHER ?" 

A ni si: and go, and thy Father who seeth in secret shall 
reward thee openly in such untold blessings upon yourself, 
and upon all the people of South Carolina, so that you shall 
be able to say to any one who is faint-hearted, and ready to 
fly from it in this day of darkness and tribulation, in the 
language of holy Rutherford, in one of Scotland's darkest 
and bloodiest days, when he himself was privily doomed to 
death, and when a friend proposed to leave the country, 
" Let me entreat you to be for from the thought of leaving 
tins land; I see it, and find it, that the Lord hath covered 
the whole land with a cloud in his anger: but though I 
have been tempted to the like, I had rather be in Scot- 
land beside angry Jesus Christ, than in any Eden or garden 
of the earth." 



-J 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




012 026 458 8 



m 









■NHMB 



^twHUBtf! 



lM 




